


He Sees Her First

by butterflybaby91



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, Not terribly sad, They all die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflybaby91/pseuds/butterflybaby91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras notices Eponine before anyone else, usually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Sees Her First

The first time he sees her, he does not know who she is. He does not experience butterflies or soul singing or anything like stories talk about. All he can see is the red on her skin and the black on his as he steps in between her and a dark haired man who held a knife over her threateningly. He is not sure what compelled him to do such a thing, but he earns a black eye for his troubles as the assailant punches him in frustration, but runs away, sparing the girl and him further harm.

 

He watches the man turn the corner, before he faces the girl who is trying to staunch the blood flowing from the gash on her arm, “Here, let me help you with that,” he says and pulls out a handkerchief that he tries to press against her arm, but she wrenches it away from him.

“I’m fine,” she mutters not looking at him.

Enjolras cannot quell the swell of frustration at the rudeness of the girl who he was just injured by protecting. “Are you all right?” he asks her through gritted teeth, getting ready to walk away and never see her again if she does not want his help.

She finally looks at him with a glare, “I’m fine,” she repeats, “and I was fine before you stepped in—I had it under control.”

He scoffs, “Yes, because being threatened with a knife while your arm is already bleeding is the epitome of fine,” he says haughtily, his anger getting the best of him.

They just stand there for a moment, each one’s eyes burning a hole in the other. Enjolras wonders briefly why he cares so much—she is just some nameless street girl who has too much pride to appreciate the fact that he just saved her from a certain stabbing. He shakes that thought from his head. She was not a nameless street girl, he reminds himself—she was one of the abased, thrown into a helpless situation just because of her birth. With this reminder he straightens up and stiffly bows to the girl, “Mademoiselle, if you’ll excuse me,” he says and turns to go.

“Wait!” she cries after he is a few steps away. She lunges for his arm, her small hand gripping his forearm, stopping him mid-step. Her hand feels strange on his arm, too warm somehow and it makes him uncomfortable, so he pulls away as he faces her, “Why did you do that?” she asks with the air of someone who desperately wants not to care, but somehow still does.

He just stares at her, “No one deserves to be treated like that,” he tells her flatly, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, because to him it is. When she does not respond, he bows again, averting his eyes from her face and walks away, while she just stares after him.

—

The second time he sees her, he is standing in front of his friends talking about the plight of the poor. He is turned, with his side facing the door and he catches a glimpse of her raven hair as she slips in the door. Out of the corner of his eye he watches her slink over toward Marius and awkwardly tap on his shoulder. Enjolras does not understand the disappointing pain he feels in the pit of his stomach at Marius’ excited expression when he sees her. He notes the way Marius presses his hand tenderly into hers and the way her face lights up like the sun at the gesture. The unfamiliar feeling is distracting and he pauses in his speech to push the feelings beneath the surface so he can focus on the task at hand.

He finishes speaking to rousing cheers from his friends and he sits down as Feuilly takes the stump. As he comes down from his post speech high, the disturbing feeling rises again as he glances in the girl’s direction. Marius is whispering to Courfeyrac, which causes Enjolras to frown and wonder why he is not paying attention, before Enjolras realizes that he is also not listening to what Feuilly has to say. Before turning to pay attention to his friend, he sees the girl leaning around Marius to try and hang on every word he says. Her lips are formed into a small smile, but her eyes are filled with sadness and loss.

Enjolras finds he very much wants to know what Marius and Courfeyrac are carrying on about that has caused the girl so much pain. He is frowning while he studies his friends and only realizes the extent of his distraction when he feels a sharp tap on his shoulder and turns to see Combeferre giving him a questioning look. Enjolras shakes his head, both to clear it and to assure Combeferre that he is fine. He manages to focus on Feuilly and the following speakers for the rest of the meeting.

It is only later, after the meeting, when he is sitting at a table alone, most of his friends having left to fill the remainder of their evening with frivolity, drink, and women, that his thoughts turn to the girl again—and then only because he looks up to find her standing right in front of him, glaring. He wonders if she has any other looks than one of pain and one of fury as she opens her mouth, “You,” she accuses.

“Yes, I am myself,” he says irritably, “What do you want?”

She does not lessen her fierce stare, but she does creep an almost imperceptible inch closer to him as she asks, “Are you friends with Monsieur Marius?”

He sighs, “Yes I am. I see you are as well?” he asks even though he just wants the frustrating girl to leave him in peace.

At the question, her countenance drops and so does her gaze. She studies her bare toe that is drawing circles on the ground, “Ah, well no. Monsieur Marius does not really notice me. We are neighbors you see, and I…I run errands for him on occasion. Tonight he wanted me to bring him news of a girl he had met,” she relays mournfully and when she looks up again her faces bears the same painful expression that it had earlier.

He is still confused by the expression and the information the girl has told him—he cannot comprehend why this girl would feel so much hurt from simply running messages for his friend and he stares at her a few moments before saying, “Well, even if you are not friends with Marius as you say, you are certainly welcome to come back to our meetings—we welcome all who are a friend of our cause or wish to learn more,” he replies before he realizes that he has just invited this infuriating girl to come again and wonders what he is doing.

She has a vicious glint in her eye as she regards him, “And what, Monsieur, is your cause?” she asks with just a hint of teasing.

He frowns, she must not have been paying attention at all to what was going on for the past several hours if she has to ask that, but it is his job to inform the people that they should have rights and be free so he does, “We want a France where everyone is equal and children, such as yourself, do not have to wander the streets wearing rags and not eating,” he summarizes and then notices that her glare has returned, “What?” he asks genuinely confused at her anger.

“I thank you for your concern for my people, Monsieur,” she spits, “But we are not game pieces to be played with by pretty bourgeois boys who have nothing better to do with their time. Good day Monsieur,” she adds and with that flounces out of the café in anger.

Enjolras just stares after her, unsure of what just happened, frustration and anger building up as he watches her go.

—

The third time he sees her, she is trailing a large, gaudily dressed man, tugging a small red headed girl along with her. They are in the shadows and he is pretty sure he is the only one who has noticed them. But that is nothing new, as he always seems to be the only one who notices her. He thinks he has a good idea of what they are about to do. The trio’s eyes are shifting from person to person in the square and it is not long before her eyes land on him and she glares, a familiar expression on her, before she comes stomping toward him angrily.

He has not seen her since the first day she appeared in the café at their meeting, but his friends have seen her. He hears their whispers about how she follows Marius around. He hears their comments about her being the boy’s shadow. He did not know what it meant at first and the thoughts bothered him. Eventually he figured out, combining what his friends had mentioned, with what he had seen of her actions that night in the café, that she must fancy Marius. The thought bothers him for some inexplicable reason.

Now, as she fumes towards him, with several anxious backward glances toward the man and girl she is abandoning, his stomach twists unpleasantly. “What are you doing here?” she demands when she nears, “This is not a good part of town for a bourgeois such as yourself to be,” she tells him and for some reason her voice seems filled with worry.

“I’ll be fine. I am just trying to rally the people to rise with our cause,” he assures her brushing aside her fears and the swelling feeling they have brought to his chest, “What are you doing?” he asks, curious about the people she is with.

But as he asks, her face becomes closed and withdrawn, “Nothing,” she mutters, “Please, get away from here,” she begs, eyes roaming the square as if to search for some eminent danger. Enjolras mimics her motion, but sees nothing out of the ordinary. True, he does not often make his way down to the poorer parts of town, as the girl said, it really was not safe, but with the political tensions rising in the city with the heat of summer drawing near, he has to make an effort to let the poor know that they could have more in life.

“What frightens you?” he finally asks as the girl does not speak again and her whole presence bespeaks anxiety.

She laughs a dry, haughty, and mocking, but not unpleasant sound. And when she does, her eyes get a fearsome glint to them, that almost make Enjolras take a step back—if he were a less assured man, he would have stepped away from this wild thing, but he stands his ground waiting. “I have nothing to be afraid of, no one here would dare hurt me,” she bites laughing again, “It is for you I fear. You are Marius’ friend—I would hate for you to end up robbed or dead in an alley, he would be very upset.”

He feels himself internally draw back at the mention of Marius. Of course the girl was only concerned because of his relation with her beloved. He gives her a curt nod, “Well, I thank you for your concern,” he says drily, “But I will be able to protect myself. I must be off now,” he gives her a stiff bow, “Have a good day mademoiselle…” he lets his voice trial off realizing that even after three run ins, he does not know this captivating girl’s name.

“Eponine,” she supplies, eyes flickering in amusement.

“Have a good day mademoiselle Eponine,” he amends, liking the way her name rolls off his tongue.

—

It is on their fourth run in that he feels the beginnings of flutters in the pit of his stomach. He sees her from across the square stalking some fancy rich man down the street. Trying to be just as stealthy as her, Enjolras sneaks up behind her and wraps his hand around her wrist before it can slip into the man’s pocket. She stills and the man moves out of reach, unaware of his purse’s danger. He whispers in her ear, “What do you think you are doing?” as he continues to clutch her wrist. The thought of how nice and warm her rough skin feels against his calloused hand flits across his mind, but she snatches her arm away just then and scowls at him.

“Trying to survive; now I have to start all over,” she sighs and turns around to survey the square, searching for her next victim.

He reaches into his pocket to full out a handful of francs, “Here, if you need money—you don’t have to steal,” he tells her offering the money.

She just frowns at his offerings and shakes her head, “I don’t need charity Monsieur,” he scoffs at that, but puts the money back in his pocket, deciding not to argue with her.

“You don’t need charity, but you’re willing to take money out of someone’s pocket,” he gently teases, understanding the difference and feeling slightly awed at her pride—most of the children whom he knows that run around the streets talk big, but at the end of the day the pain in their bellies usually allows them to accept the coins offered to them by Les Amis.

Eponine moves on down the street, staying in the shadows, but not fully abandoning him, “Yes, well I was working for that money. It’s not like he would’ve missed a few sous anyway,” she berates him. She stops and hungrily eyes a pile of fresh bread being watched by a vendor with hawk like eyes on a cart nearby.

Just then, the bells from Notre Dame began chiming the hour and Eponine swears under her breath, “Dammit,” she whirls on Enjolras, “Thanks to you I won’t be eating today, because I have to go meet Marius now and you ruined all my work for the morning,” Enjolras backs up in fear as it looks like she is about to hit him, but she does not, only continues to glare, “You say you want to help us, but you just made my day so much worse,” and with another stomp of frustration she is off, running down the street, to Marius, whom Enjolras is pretty sure would never have noticed had Eponine not showed up. He pushes aside the irrational jealousy he feels seeing her run off so hurriedly toward his friend. Instead he finds himself focusing on her angry parting words.

Little did Eponine know that her words caused Enjolras to be troubled about his limited firsthand knowledge about the plight of the poor for days afterward, but with such limited time before the rising heat of summer boiled over the tensions already straining in the city, such thoughts only got in the way of his calculated planning.

—

The fifth time he sees her, the Musain is in an uproar as the gamin, Gavroche, has just come to inform the group that General Lamarque is dead. Enjolras has just finished speaking about how they need to proceed to take advantage of the momentum Lamarque’s death brings their movement and he has turned to continue admonishing Marius regarding his lack of dedication to the cause, when he sees her tangled head of coffee hair peeking out from the top of the stairs.

His heart begins to beat faster for some reason when he sees her, but he does not approach her right away. Even as his eyes are on her, Enjolras continues to berate a only partly bashful Marius about how some blonde haired angel, whom he had not even spoken to, was, in no way more important than trying to restore France to a republic.

But, Enjolras could tell Marius was only half listening—his mind was far away elsewhere. Enjolras sighed, running a hand through his hair, and pushed past a day dreaming Marius and approached Eponine, who was still loitering at the top of the stairs. He had no idea what compelled him to go talk to the girl or why his palms were sweating, or why his heart did a flip when she smirked at him, brown eyes dancing in merriment.

“So you’ve heard the news I take it?” she asked, paying more attention to the grime under her finger nails than to him.

The frustration at her casual, careless pose bit at him, but Enjolras forced it away and replied evenly, “The news of Lamarque’s death? Yes, the gamin, Gavroche, just informed us.”

Eponine looked up, startled, “What?” she gasped, suddenly breathless, eyes flitting between Enjolras and Marius, worry clear on her face.

Enjolras frowned, “Is that not the news you meant?” he asked, confused.

Eponine shook her head and her face suddenly fell, sadness twisting her features. Enjolras had the urge to do anything in his power to remove that downtrodden look—but he had no idea why she was suddenly upset, nor any idea how to make her feel better.

“The news about Marius and his love,” Eponine muttered bitterly, looking down at her bare feet upon the coarse wood floors.

He grimaced—of course she was only concerned about what was going on with Marius and his heart. It bothered him to no end, because Marius had not even noticed she was in the room. “Oh yes,” Enjolras replied, “We have heard about Marius’  _angel_  to no end—he would be better off, France would be better off, if he exerted some of the energy that he has spent mooning over her, toward our cause,” Enjolras’ tone was almost as bitter as Eponine’s was angry as he was at both his friend and the fact that this girl was so enraptured with him.

He must have sounded more caustic than he meant to, because Eponine gave him a strange look before she said, “Yes, well, we can’t all have the unyielding passion of Enjolras,” before flashing him a brief, cursory smile and slinking off toward Marius.

Enjolras watched while she stood, unnoticed, at the boy’s arm for a few moments, before she gently tapped him on the elbow. Marius jumped, but when he saw Eponine at his side, his face lit up. Momentarily, Enjolras was about to admit that he should maybe give his friend a bit more credit, since he was obviously delighted to see the gamine, but then he heard Marius’ words, “Have you found her, Eponine?”

He shook his head, partly disgusted that Marius would have the poor girl running around the city, searching for girls that might as well be a figment of his imagination and partly upset that Eponine would allow herself to be used so in the destruction of her own heart, for she was clearly in love with the boy.

The pair passed him as they went to go leave the café, on their way to wherever, Marius’ new found love interest was located. As they passed, Enjolras leveled a stern glare in Marius’ direction, for once again forsaking his friends—it did not even faze the boy.

But as Eponine slipped past him, Enjolras grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear, “You don’t have to do this you know—you don’t have to lead him to this girl.”

Eponine just stared at him, eyes lifeless and flat and said, “What choice do I have?”

And Enjolras did not have an answer for her, so she slipped away into the night.

—

It is early afternoon of the next day before he runs into Eponine again. And when he does, he almost does not recognize her at first. It is only by the virtue that he has taken to searching for her in the crowds, wondering if she is hiding among the masses, that he recognizes her in her disguise at all.

For as they are hurriedly constructing their barricade, with furniture flying, shouts being flung across the street, and Enjolras standing in the midst of it all, overseeing the culmination of months of planning, he notices a small boy—but not a gamin—with his hat pulled low over his eyes, and his clothes, much too baggy around a rail thin frame. When the boy looks up, he sees, not the harden face of a male youth, but the weathered eyes of a girl who has seen more of the world than the rest of them combined.

He roughly grabs her sleeve, causing Eponine to jerk into a standing position from where she was placing a chair delicately on the haphazard pile of rubble. She slowly turned her head toward him and cocked an eyebrow in question at Enjolras, not even bothering to hide her face or identity.

“What are you doing here?” he growled, suddenly very angry that she was risking her life here and he had a  _very_  good reason why and that thought only made him angrier.

She shrugged, nonchalantly, “I’m here to fight,” she said simply, managing to pull away from him and go back to work.

“Eponine,” he hissed, hastily looking around to make sure no one else had realized this young girl was in their midst, “You can’t be here—you can’t fight,” he insisted.

At that, Eponine spun around to face him, anger blazing on her face, “And why for heaven sake’s not?” she demanded, hands on her hips, eyes raging in fury, “It can’t be because you have so many others who are willing to stand with you! Look around! The people are not going to risk their lives to follow a group of school boys to their deaths—for you know very well where this is headed.”

He stared at her, angry now at her words and the spasms of fear and doubt they sent curdling through his stomach, “You don’t know that,” he whispered bitterly.

“Don’t I? Aren’t I one of them? How many people do you know who actually live on the streets Monsieur Enjolras?” When he just stared at her blankly, lips twitching with rage, she just smirked and said, “That’s what I thought.” Turning back to work, she added lightly, “Your revolution is doomed and judging by your face I assume you know that—what’s the death of one more going to change anything.”

Enjolras felt his blood run cold as she so casually referred to the impending doom of all those present behind the barricade and he began to look around frantically at his friends and closest companions. He saw Combeferre, calmly directing the others to their tasks. He saw Courfeyrac messing around with Gavroche instead of actually doing anything, as he tried to keep the small boy away from the pile of weapons. He saw Bossuet trying to comfort a nervous Joly, who kept glancing frantically at the sky, from which a light drizzle had begun to fall. He saw Jehan, Bahorel, and Feuilly, all diligently working to building the barricade; working toward building their dream of a better tomorrow. He saw Grantaire, splayed unceremoniously across a chair, that would surely be taken from him in moments to be added to their fortress, hanging around the group, despite his lack of dedication to their cause. And he saw Marius, over to the side of everything, by himself, sullenly devoted now to the Amis, now that he had lost Cosette, most likely forever. He thought of how, one way or another, level of commitment be damned, they were all here now, all destined to the same fate. Which he had always realized, at least for himself; the leader, would most likely be death—he had never fully allowed himself to consider that fact that all those he loved and cared for would most likely die as well.

Turning back to Eponine with a shaken and heavy heart, he found her still watching him closely and, as if she could read his thoughts, she gave him a defeated smile, and said, “I knew you would realize it.”

Enjolras shook his head, “No, but Eponine, you’re here for the wrong reasons,” he insisted. She looked at him questioningly, as he adds, “Don’t die for him,” then in a softer voice, “He’s not worth it.”

He did not know how he expected her to response, but his heart told him it was not the way she did—Eponine’s eyes flashed and took a step closer to him, looking like she might strike him, “Don’t you dare act like you know me or why I’m here.”

Before he could respond, Marius suddenly came running across the enclosure with a breathless cry of “Eponine!” In an instant, she was gone, conversation with Enjolras forgotten as she was finally noticed by the object of her affection, Enjolras’  _“But I want to know you_ ” lost to the wind.

—

The last time he sees her, it is through the haze of gun smoke and the confusion of battle. He sees her pull the gun meant for Marius to her own chest. He is too far away to stop it—too far away to change fate. Momentarily, he wishes the bullet that pierced her chest was lodged in his. But, he knows that could never happen. Even if he were near enough to change this, he is meant to die for his country, not for this girl.

As he watches her stumble backwards and collapse, all he can do is let her name escape his lips in a strangled prayer of, “Eponine.”

He reaches for her first, but as always, Marius pushes him aside and reaches her faster. Tears were already streaming down his face, matching the rain that had begun to fall as the world mourned the loss of one of its precious flowers; Marius gripped her tightly in his arms, whispering words of comfort and false promises spurned from the desperation of the moment.

Enjolras hung back for he knew it was truly Marius she wanted; not him—never him—and he would not let his selfish desire to let the last of her warm blood soak his shirt again as it did when they first met. He will not ruin her last, happy, moments, as she lay in her lover’s arms.

So all he could do was stand there and watch; transfixed with despair, as the life of this girl whom he barely knew, and yet somehow felt himself tied to, slipped away bit by bit.

His hands grasped helplessly at the air around as if he could perhaps grab her soul and tie it to the earth before it too slipped away, along with the light that had already dulled from her eyes.

As she spoke her dying words of love to Marius, her head tilted to the side and her eyes pierced through him once before they were dark and glassy, mere orbs of the diamonds that they had been.

Silence filled the air, before Marius’ frantic cries of her name and then his sobs were heard. Enjolras felt that the others were stunned at seeing the first person to fall on the barricade, especially watching a young, innocent girl, fall victim to their ideals. Something in him was able to will himself to take charge, directing Combeferre to take her body out of Marius’ arms, ushering the others from gawking at their despairing friend, back to the work at hand.

He leaned down and grasped Marius’ shoulder tightly in as much a show of sympathy as he could muster, given the state of turmoil his own emotions were in and the blood that still coated Marius’ entire person, which Enjolras could not tear his eyes off, some last macabre reminder of her.

Squeezing his eyes tightly closed, Enjolras stood and moved to stand in front of all of his friends, who were waiting for further instruction from him. He somehow managed to make a few remarks in her memorandum before they had to strive toward their destinies, guns blazing in fury for those who, as she had predicted, would not stand with them.

It did not matter. One by one, they all went to their deaths, knowing full well what they were fighting for, even if in the end, it did not matter for whom they fought. Enjolras was the last to fall. As he faced down the assembly of guns before him, her memory on his mind, Grantaire’s hand in his, Enjolras could only pray that they had not all died in vain.

He hoped, in that at least, that she was wrong and somehow, each life that was lost upon the barricade mattered. As he recalled the brief moments that he had seen her in their short lives, he could not believe that even a life, as seemingly insignificant as hers could have been lived in vain. In the moment that he squeezed Grantaire’s hand and a bullet struck his heart, he went to his death, content in dying for a better tomorrow, so that others like her might not have to face her fate.

As the bullets pierced his chest and his soul fled the earth, he sees her again, but this time, it is not him who sees her first, for in death, Eponine’s radiance, dimmed on earth by the circumstances of her life, cannot be hidden and she is the first being he sees as he passes from one world to the next, but his other friends who went before him also have their eyes trained on her.

It is he whom she approaches however, with a small smile trained on her ghostly lips. She grasps his hand and together, they make their way onward.


End file.
